Ookla's 'North Star' is a better Internet for all
Ookla's Brennen Smith explains that the organization's 'North Star' or main objective is to support quality of experience of network performance for Internet users. We also discuss standards for network performance.
At a Glance
- Network performance progress in the telecom industry (05:46)
- Low Latency, Low Loss, and Scalable Throughput (L4S) standard for network performance (08:42)
- Ookla's main goal is a better Internet experience for all (09:17)
Brennen Smith, VP of technology for Ookla, joins the podcast to discuss latency and network performance challenges in the telecom industry. Prior to Ookla, Smith worked on the FaceTime team at Apple where his team also faced what Smith describes as the challenge of "how to ensure that connections were always maintaining great quality."
Smith explains that Ookla's "North Star" or main objective is to support quality of experience of network performance for Internet users. We also discuss whether 5G has fallen short of promises to improve network latency and what standards have been developed for network performance.
Click on the caption button for a lightly edited transcript.
Here are a few topics we covered:
Background on Smith, his role at Ookla and Ookla's Speedtest service (02:44)
Network performance progress in the telecom industry (05:46)
Low Latency, Low Loss, and Scalable Throughput (L4S) standard for network performance (08:42)
Ookla's main goal is a better Internet experience for all (09:17)
About Ookla's Down Detector alerts (11:39)
Is there a discrepancy between promised improvements to latency with 5G and what the technology actually delivers? (17:27)
FWA as the "poster child for monetization of 5G" (18:54)
More on Ookla's efforts to improve network performance (23:57)
Do we have to wait for 6G to see the latency improvements promised with 5G? (30:13)
About the Author(s)
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